The present invention is related to fastening devices, and particularly to a latch used for securing telecommunications equipment.
Equipment enclosures house various types of equipment, such as electrical or telecommunications equipment. For example, a building entrance protector (BEP) may house the interface hardware between the telephones of an office building and an exterior telephone cable having a number of twisted copper pairs that carry the voice signals for those telephones. FIG. 8 is an illustration of a typical BEP. A BEP may also be used to house the interface hardware for systems based on fiber optical communications. Similarly, BEP enclosures may be used with telecommunications systems carrying signals other than just telephone voice signals.
Equipment enclosures are typically located in accessible areas, such as basements, closets, and offices. Thus, it is often desirable to control access to equipment enclosures. Access may be controlled by the type of mechanism used to hold together the parts that form the enclosure, such as the cover and the housing. As shown in FIG. 8, cover 70 is attached to the enclosure by attaching mechanism 74. Also, housing 72 is attached to the enclosure by attaching mechanism 76. These attaching mechanisms may comprise special security screws to securely lock the enclosure, thereby restricting access to only those individuals who have special tools designed to remove those security screws. Two such screws are 216-type screws and KS-type screws, each of which requires a different special tool. KS-type screws and 216-type screws are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,650, issued to Daoud and are shown herin in FIGS. 9A, 9B, 10A, 10B, 11A, and 11B. A regular slotted or Phillips-head screw may also be used to lock the enclosure.
Typically, the enclosures, which house the equipment, such as fiber optic components, must be locked after all work on the equipment is completed. It is not uncommon for technicians, who are often pressed for time, to slam the equipment cover shut without locking the cover. Also, because the BEP is typically wall mounted, it is not uncommon for the cover to swing to the closed position. Because the cover may appear to be locked, the technician may forget to lock the mechanism with the required tool. Thus, a need exists for a locking mechanism that provides a self-locking feature that enables a technician to lock the enclosure by simply slamming the cover shut.
A latch for joining a cover to a housing, includes a shaft and a clasp. The shaft includes a head and a tail. The tail includes peripherally alternating sets of longitudinally spaced teeth and tail cam surfaces. Each tooth has a shoulder facing the head of the shaft and a tooth cam surface. The perimeter of a cross section of each tail cam surface is arcuate. The clasp includes pawls. When the tail is inserted into the clasp, each pawl is in contact with the tail cam surface, the tooth cam surface, or the shoulder.